Since 1967, the Boston Globe Horn Book Awards have recognized outstanding children’s and young adult literature — winners in the Picture Book category include names like Maurice Sendak and Ezra Jack Keats, so you know they know what they’re doing.
This year, Marla Frazee, author and illustrator of The Farmer And The Clown, joins that impressive club. Her book tells the story of a farmer who happens upon a toddler clown that’s been bumped from a passing circus train. Thus begins an unlikely relationship told through a color palette that brightens subtly as the two become friends, just in time for the circus to come looking for the missing little clown.
Frazee follows in the grand tradition of the 1978 award winner, The Snowman (also known as ‘The Saddest Christmas Story Ever‘) by using only pictures to tell a beautiful tale that will have your kids asking why daddy’s crying over the bedtime stories again.
The Farmer And The Clown by Marla Frazee ($14)
Ages: 4-8
